


close your eyes and

by 100demons



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:18:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things are better than dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	close your eyes and

Krista Renz has hair as black as coal, eyes as blue as sapphires, skin paler than the Walls-- no, paler than the moon, Ymir decides. Krista Renz is tall and graceful, a nobleman’s daughter with a coy smile that brings countless men down on their knees. When Ymir is feeling indulgent (mostly on the days when she has enough not to feel the painful pinch of hunger), she dresses Krista Renz in flowing gowns of silk, imagines her with full lips stained red from strawberries and dark hair braided into an elegant crown, a diamond on her brow.

But mostly Ymir imagines them sitting Outside, on the banks of a stream cutting through her favorite grove of trees. She tells Krista about the coins she nicked from the proselytizing Pastor on the corner, the rack of pies she’d lifted off a windowsill, the pack of grubby boys she’d stomped on when they so much as looked at her loot. And Krista Renz would smile and nod and card her fingers through Ymir’s hair, murmuring something soft and soothing in a low voice.

When she’s tired, curled up in her raggedy nest of blankets with nothing to eat for dinner, she asks Krista what her name is.

 _Your real name_ , Ymir asks (but never begs, because she is _Ymir_ ), unwinding Krista Renz’s mass of braids with her fingers, careful so as not to pull on her scalp. _The one you had before you ran away._ But Krista Renz only smiles mysteriously and allows Ymir to untangle her crown until it falls down her back like a carpet of black silk, diamond pins scattered in her hair like stars in the night.

Sometimes, Ymir refuses to think of her at all, of the girl from the church that the Pastors spoke of, the girl who is better off dead.

 

* * *

 

Spare bits of rationbooks are tucked into her boots and slid discreetly underneath her tray during mealtimes. Brown sugar candy, made only in the safety behind Wall Shina, dropped into her book bag while walking down the classroom aisle. Ymir watches all of this with half-lidded eyes, taking in Krista’s demure blushes, the way she hides behind her curtain of blond hair.

“If you wanted, you could set up your own black market here in the barracks,” Ymir says lazily, draped over the width of her bed, head peering at Krista’s upside-down feet. She has a hole in her big toe. “You could bribe the guards for town leave with the candy, get better food from the mess with the rationbooks. You could always ask your legion of puppy lovers for more, in return for a kiss or two.” Ymir runs her tongue over her lower lip. “Or maybe even some fruit,” just a touch wistfully.

Krista’s feet move, little black shadows with flashes of pale flesh peeking through with every motion. Ymir blinks and Krista’s bright blue eyes blink right back, pale strands of hair framing her face, her breath ghosting over Ymir’s face. “That wouldn’t be very fair, would it?” she says and Ymir jerks her head away, nearly banging her forehead on Krista’s nose.

“Fair,” she says and snorts, settling back onto her bed with her head against the backboard. “Oi, Braus!”

Sasha pokes her head through the door, cheeks bulging with food. “Wargumphul?”

“My boots need shining,” Ymir says and snaps her fingers. “Get to it.”

Sasha salutes with a bounce of her ponytail and swallowed with some difficulty. “Please, I’m still finishing my dinner--”

Ymir narrows her eyes. “Not anymore you’re not.” Krista makes a squeaky sort of noise but Ymir ignores it, watching the skinny hunter girl scurry across the floor, boot brush clamped in her mouth.

“You shouldn’t do this,” Krista says in a low murmur, perching herself on the foot of Ymir’s bed.

“Krista Renz,” Ymir says, dragging out the vowels of Krista’s name. “Are you, of all people, telling me what I should and shouldn’t do?’

Krista instantly flushes, knuckles whitening in the folds of her dress. “No, that is-- I--”

Ymir swings her legs out of bed and stands up, running a casual hand through her hair. “Shiny enough so I can see my own reflection, potato girl.” As she’s leaving, Krista’s hand brushes her’s briefly for a moment before fading away. Ymir opens up her hand outside the barracks, a crumpled ration coupon sitting innocently in the middle of her palm.

It’s for a pint of strawberries.

Ymir smooths out the piece of paper with a trembling finger. In the corner, there’s a note scribbled in graphite: _i wish i could tell you_. Her fingers clench over the note and she knows she’ll keep it, unused. Some things are better than dreams.


End file.
